Posted onA Step in the Right Direction

So Long and Thanks for All the Fish

by 22 Comments on So Long and Thanks for All the Fish

This site, FFFF, has been my digital home off and on since I broke the news that Joe Felz committed his “wet and reckless” and ran over Poor Sappy McTree on 09 November 2016. In the 4+ years since that fateful post I have written over 180 posts under my own name and allegedly may have collaborated on some work with Lonnie Machin which led to this blog, David Curlee and myself getting sued.

I’ve made local friends, enemies and a lot in-between in that time and I regret very little of it. I’m not a hero in the story of FFFF as I’ve simply been another voice in a collection of malcontents who have worked to expose some of the corruption at City Hall and in/around Fullerton since this blog was founded circa 2008.

Contrary to some local speculation this isn’t my blog. I do not own it. I do not host or administer it. I do not write the content other than what I previously mentioned. I also try very hard to follow Wreck it Ralph’s first rule of the internet.

That said, my limited activity on here is coming to a close. The lawsuit used by the kleptocrats at City Hall to shield themselves from responsibility took a lot out of me. It was draining for me and my family and it cost me some friendships I’ll miss. Now that it’s all said and done I’ve decided to step away from FFFF as I’ve never really felt like I was a good fit for this place.

I’m too uncompromising. Too much of an ideologue. I’m just not very good at Team Sports and politicking. Because I don’t know who the anonymous bloggers are here at FFFF, it makes it impossible for me to work with them which likewise makes it impossible to share a vision or goals. I know we all want a better city with more responsible government but that’s largely where it ends. I need to stress this next point – and I can’t stress it enough – that’s a ME problem. FFFF was FFFF before I came along. I knew, largely, what I was getting myself into and that I wouldn’t know who I was “working” with on this site. That was and is a feature of FFFF and not a bug. I am/was able to post whatever I wanted with no oversight or editing or controls. It’s a free for all here at FFFF and that freedom can lead to breaking stories, shitposting or lawsuits. It’s a mixed bag.

But I’m looking to get out of the blogging world. I started doing news/politics related videos some time back and found that I enjoy that more than sitting here typing. I like deep diving into a topic at my leisure instead of feeling bad that I don’t post enough or that I haven’t found more people to write for a site that isn’t mine. I feel a big weight on my shoulders writing for FFFF and that weight isn’t mine any more than FFFF is mine.

The videos I was making for YouTube were never on local politics so they didn’t belong here on FFFF – on a site branded and run for local Fullerton politics – but as I shifted from typing to talking more and more I found that as I tried to figure out what content to put where – I wasn’t putting content anywhere. This, again, was and is a ME issue.

I fully realize that the reach this site has (I know how many people get the email list) made me somewhat notorious locally and not the other way around. I appreciate everything the Friends have done for me and my family over the years, especially during that hellscape of a lawsuit when it cost me my job. I made some friends thanks to this site I could not replace if I tried and I’ll always be grateful for that and many other things. But my usefulness here has ended. I’m more of a liability than an asset. More of a distraction than a feature. My interests fall outside of the narrative arcs that the anonymous bloggers publish and that’s not a bad thing.

I’ll always read FFFF and will always be grateful that they asked me to join them after the City Council race of 2016. As I stated earlier I have few, if any, regrets from my time here. I’m also grateful to the many readers who appreciated what I was trying to do in exposing the truth in Fullerton. You’d be shocked how many people stopped me on the street, at the local bars, in the grocery store even – to comment on my posts or to thank me for my writing. It was a pleasure knowing that I had even a limited impact and I hope to continue that with my videos to a different extent.

Thank you all for the years of friendship, malcontentedness and support.

In the words of the Dolphins who left Earth in the Hitchhiker’s trilogy, “So long and thanks for all the fish”. Cheers.

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Posted onBad Cops

10 Year Anniversary

by 5 Comments on 10 Year Anniversary

Although it has no doubt escaped notice by many, last Monday was the 10-year anniversary of the bludgeoning of Kelly Thomas by a gang wearing the colors of the Fullerton Police Department. This Saturday will mark the date his family removed the homeless, schizophrenic man from artificial life support.

But the Friends haven’t forgotten. And we haven’t forgotten that people who did this to Kelly Thomas were acquitted by a bone-head jury; that the FPD was never reformed; that the police department over the past decade has continued to employ and deploy angry, prevaricating, larcenous police officers; that the FPD sucks up half our budget. And we will never forget how Fullerton’s “establishment”  liberals hid behind their drawn curtains in fright when justice was demanded, and instead tried to divert attention to the homeless problem.

And let’s never forget the millions paid out to Kelly Thomas’s mother and father.

No, Sharon Quirk, this was not about socks. It was about a dead man, chocked to death in his own blood.

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Posted onBehind Closed Doors

More Fitzgerald Fun: Bid Rigging and Nest Feathering?

by 13 Comments on More Fitzgerald Fun: Bid Rigging and Nest Feathering?
Leaving Fullerton City hell a lot worse off than she found it…

In Fullerton, reasonable people may be forgiven for their skepticism regarding the probity of the folks in City Hall causes them to consider cynical possibilities.

In this case, the object of scrutiny is once again our former Mayor-for-Hire, Jennifer Fitzgerald, who has ditched Fullerton after years of working as a lobbyist on our dime. On her way out the door, Fitzgerald got some sort of gig with a company called Tripepi Smith, an outfit that hires itself out to governments to promote stuff like bond floatations and new taxes.

Yes, that is the answer!

Well, so what? you say. Somebody at Tripepi Smith thinks Fitzy is a useful addition to their stable of government string pullers; and they also think there is some way in hell she can peddle her wares in Texas, where she has fled.

The thing of it is, Tripepi Smith was given a contract by the City of Fullerton in 2020 to broadcast City Council and Planning Commission meetings. But that’s not all. The first RFP went out early in the year and there was only one respondent. You guessed it: Tripepi Smith. The incumbent 25-year contractor cried foul, claiming he hadn’t been notified, despite assertions to the contrary from now-fired City Manager, Ken Domer. And it turns out that Domer’s second in charge, Antonia Graham, actually had a testimonial on Tripepi Smith’s web page from when she was employed by Huntington Beach.

The embarrassed council put the gig out to bid again in April, and in August 2020 Tripepi Smith was once again selected – over the incumbent – by a hand-picked collection of cities – one of whom Tripepi Smith actually works for.

Now, what Fitzgerald’s efforts in this peculiar procurement were is, of course, a matter of speculation. But we do know that she controlled what went on in City Hall, and we also know that when it came to personal opportunities, she never missed a trick. Was she in cahoots with Domer to make sure the applicant pool for this service was small and that Tripepi Smith would inevitably get the job? I can’t say. But I can say that a suspicious bid process was followed by some sort of personal opportunity for Jennifer Fitzgerald. That is all.

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Posted onCurt Pringle & Associates

More Fitzgerald Fun

by 15 Comments on More Fitzgerald Fun
I’m not telling the truth and you can’t make me…

By now all the Friends know that our former Mayor-for-Hire, Jennifer Fitzgerald, has crammed all the loot she could stuff into her bags and is hightailing it for a state that has no extradition treaty. But her name still resonates, of course – a symbol of government treasury looting.

Well, here’s something interesting- a FitzySpark story that has several layers, each one suggestive of fraud.

For the past several years Fitzgerald reveled in the title of “Vice President” of Curt Pringle and Associates, an elevated title that suggests she was a valuable employee. But was she?

Here’s a snap from a report showing that Fitzgerald received a little government stimulus cheese to help out “payroll” for her little influence peddling operation “CL& Communications.”

If the cheese stinks, nibble on it…

Hmm. So she’s working for Pringle for years and yet collecting PPO money? And of course her little one man show has been around a lot longer than 2 years or less. In fact, here is some helpful corporate info on Fitzy’s biz:

Uh oh.

Please notice that CL7 Communications has been around since 2009. Has the government been defrauded? I don’t know. You could try asking Dick Jones. Notice also that this business continued to exist through the years when Fitzgerald was supposed to be an officer of Curt Pringle Associates.

Hmm.

Now for more fun, kindly observe:

Bailed out by you and me…
It’s in my interest and that means it’s good for everybody…

Well at least Pringle’s been around longer than two years so there’s a rare bit of honesty from the greasiest lobbyist in Orange County. He got $175,000, also for “payroll” and one wonders if that included 1099 payments to Jennifer Fitzgerald, who gives every indication of not being a Pringle employee at all, but rather a contractor. And if that’s true, Pringle and Fitzgerald have violated California employment labor law and the Federal tax Code. See, the IRS wants employers to pay for stuff like Social Security and Medicare through withholding; and the State wants to make sure employees are not being exploited, and that Worker’s Comp insurance is in place by the business.

Now I don’t know that SparkyFitz wasn’t a real employee of Pringle; and I don’t know if Pringle was faking it to dodge paying taxes. But something smells here, and it isn’t overripe government cheese.

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Posted onCarpetbaggery

How Long Was Jose Castaneda Cheating on Fullerton?

by 21 Comments on How Long Was Jose Castaneda Cheating on Fullerton?

Socialists of a Feather

Carpetbagging has always been a problem in local politics, especially in and around Fullerton, and it looks like Fred Jung’s appointee to the Fullerton Planning Commission in District 1 might be the latest example.

Jung’s appointee to the Fullerton Planning Commission, one Jose Trinidad Castaneda III, recently told the Fullerton Observer that he “decided to move out of Fullerton” which would explain his boasting about being on a commission in the City of Buena Park and yesterday being his last PC meeting.

Castaneda - BP - Commission
Are you even qualified for this post?

But, in typical political hack fashion, it looks like Castaneda stopped being qualified to be on Fullerton’s Planning Commission at least as far back as 03 June according to Castaneda himself.

Here’s the application Castaneda submitted to Buena Park in order to qualify for his new commission that he himself signed digitally where he claims to have moved to Buena Park at least BEFORE the 3rd of June.

PRR Castaneda - BP

It’s interesting that on this form he claimed that he “served on the Fullerton Parks Commission and Planning Commission” in the past tense. Sure, he used to serve on the Parks & Rec Commission but at the time he filled out this document he was CURRENTLY serving on the Planning Commission – not formerly. Why lie?

Probably because owing to City Ordinance, it’s a requirement that somebody on Planning Commission be a resident of Fullerton. He was likely very aware of the problematic issue with voting on items that impact the city in which he no longer lives OR admitting to Buena Park that he didn’t live or do business with the city.

BP - Beautification

To be on the Beautification Commission in Buena Park you have to live in the Buena Park (which he claims on this form, while claiming otherwise on Facebook), work in Buena Park (his employer is in San Diego) or do business in Buena Park which he makes no mention of here. His only self-claimed qualification to be on this BP Commission, as written by him, is his residency..

Thus if he moved to Buena Park, as he claims on this form as his qualifying requirement to be on this commission, then ethically he should have recused himself from all votes and meetings on Fullerton’s Planning Commission. His recusal should have happened immediately after the date of his move, which was obviously at least before last night’s PC meeting if not before the 27 May meeting or sooner. Did he feel entitled to vote despite this obvious conflict? Did Jung or Fullerton’s City Attorney Jones & Mayer tell him the conflict didn’t matter? Did he bother to tell Fullerton, or Jung, that he had moved? Did he even move? Being that he obviously lied about having “served” in the past tense on Fullerton’s Planning Commission, the entire document is suspect which raises even more questions.

I guess for now we simply must say adieu to JTCIII as he, allegedly, leaves Fullerton behind in his endeavors to climb the political ladder in Buena Park. As for the facts of this matter? We probably won’t ever know the truth in this ethical quandary because Fullerton does ethics about as well as it paves streets.

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Posted onBoohooism

NIMBY Winning Out Over Autistic Children

by 4 Comments on NIMBY Winning Out Over Autistic Children

TempleBethTikvah

Tomorrow the City Council is going to vote on wether or not a business can help kids with developmental issues here in Fullerton after the Planning Commission voted to deny it.

The story is basically this;

Temple Beth Tikvah here in Fullerton has been up on Acacia for generations – since at least 1971. For quite some time they sub-leased to a Unitarian Church and nobody cared at all about it. There was plenty of traffic and a lot of religious activity and the neighbors never said a thing.

Skip ahead to last year or so and that Unitarian Church outgrew the Temple’s property and moved locations and the Temple then leased part of the property to a company called Sage Behavior Services. In the brief window where the Church was moving out and Sage was moving in – allegedly there was an increase in traffic and a neighbor got big mad about it and started to complain.

She complained and complained and complained. Code Enforcement came to the property about 10 times and was never able to verify her complaints but not one to be denied, she kept on complaining and is complaining to this day.

The issue finally made to the Planning Department and because zoning is stupid the City told TVT that they needed to have an amendment to their Conditional Use Permit to allow Sage to operate in their residentially zoned space despite the work they do being allowed by the code. The Planning Department analyzed the business Sage was running and following the municipal code they determined that Sage was *most like* a school that helps developmentally challenged kids.

This is when the Planning Commission got involved and got stupid. (more…)

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Posted onBruce Whitaker

Fullerton City Council Gives the Finger to Taxpayers

by 46 Comments on Fullerton City Council Gives the Finger to Taxpayers

Fullerton has a long and sordid history of City Council making stupid moves and putting personal animus and self-interest above what’s best for the City and it’s residents but this week they’re just insulting us taxpayers.

You see, at the last council meeting a majority of the Council voted to approve a budget with a glaring $10 Million hole in it. That’s right – the budget is in the red and terribly so. We’re broke largely because we’ve been systematically defunded by the Police and Fire Unions over the years abetted by an indebted City Council Majority who can never make hard decisions, do real math or plan ahead for the future.

The current Council has no idea how they’re going to make up this budget deficit or where the money is going to come from to pay the ever increasing union pay and benefits packages they can never deny.

So this week what’s on the agenda? What are the brass tacks they’re going to get down to? What are the hard choices they’re prepared to make in light of our financial woes? Where oh where must the cutting begin?

Somewhere else at some later date. Instead of cutting, the council is instead going to vote on spending – specifically spending for themselves.

That’s right. Self-interest is the item of the day. They’re going to vote on wether or not they should spend $75,000 to give themselves offices on the third floor of City Hall.

Agenda - Council Office Spave

You heard that correctly. Just one meeting after admitting they have no idea how to balance our budget they want to reward themselves with new offices for all of their hard work.

This is a level of self-entitlement and tone-deafness that should be unimaginable from true  “public servants”. This is nothing less than arrogance of the highest order.

Over the next few years you’re going to be asked to give up more in services, to pay more in fees and taxes and to take it on the chin because of our financial dire straights. Dire straights we were put in BY our bought and paid for City Councils.

Over those next few years Council and their allies will likely be trying to sell you on all of the financial hardships we face as a city – of course right after taking meetings with developers and lobbyists from their swanky new offices they prioritized over balancing the budget because, well, screw you.

I hope they at least have the decency to play the fiddle from up there on the third floor while they watch Fullerton burn but I doubt they’d even give us that much respect.

NeroFiddled

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Posted onAhmad Zahra

A Manfro All Seasons

by 15 Comments on A Manfro All Seasons

The Man from Manfro

Who is Eddie Manfro? I asked myself the other day. Name sounds familiar.

See, I had seen the name pop up on a Fullerton City Council agenda as somebody who was involved as a participant, along with our former City Manager, Ken Domer, in carrying on labor negotiations with the City’s  labor unions.

Hmm. Where had I heard that name before? Then it hit me. He’s the former City Manager of Westminster, who quit last year to become some sort of “human resources” expert whose supposed abilities were now for sale. Apparently Ken Domer was in the market for Manfro’s “expertise.”  If the thought of a couple of bungling bureaucrats negotiating on your behalf makes you a little uneasey, well…but, I digress.

Here’s why I remember Eddie Manfro: he’s the City Manager who willingly participated in the Dick Jones  scam in Westminster, where our ethically plugged-up City Attorney pretended to be a city employee to qualify for the CalPERS pension system and even went so far as to submit fraudulent time cards to line up with the sham. I believe these are all crimes.

No, I wasn’t asleep. I was praying…

And Eddie Manfro went along with the scam; and now, surprise, he is getting work from another agency in Dick Joneses stable of fine municipalities.

How did Eddie acquire this gig, that’s what I would like to know. And when for God’s freaking sake is  Fullerton’s City Council finally going get rid of the incompetent, corrupt, and utterly self-serving, the Dickensianly awful, the I Can’t Believe It’s a Law Firm® of Jones and Mayer?

 

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Posted onChronic Failure

Jones “Public Nuisance” Mayer

by 20 Comments on Jones “Public Nuisance” Mayer

If you thought having a City Attorney’s office suing bloggers to cover up their incompetence was bad and unethical, you’ll love this:

Fullerton’s joke of a law firm Jones & Mayer has left their front steps in a state of decrepit disrepair for at least 6 months.  Their office is located at 3777 N. Harbor Blvd, alongside a busy sidewalk.  Imagine taking your young child for a walk, losing sight for a quick second, and then watching them crack their head open on that rusty steel mess, protected only by a 2×4?

Or how about working here under the assumption that that temporary railing is well-secured?  Look closely, it isn’t.

Let’s see what constitutes a “public nuisance” within the City of Fullerton:

Who would have thought the City Attorney is the poster child of how best to violate 6.01.030 (A) and (B) many times over?

I hope the irony of this is not lost on you.  This is a law firm who makes their living advising cities on “public nuisance” cases all over California, presiding over administrative hearings, and in some cases prosecuting land owners who refuse to make repairs for the very same type of neglect and disrepair pictured above.

Time and time again, the arrogance of City Attorney Dick Jones is just stunning.  He interprets or disregards the law in whichever way is most convenient for his interests.  In case you’ve forgotten, now would be a good time to review Dick Jones’ attempt to steal a pension from CalPERS by faking himself as a City of Westminster employee.  He knew better then, and he knows better now but just doesn’t care, and that’s the problem.

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